The Quiet Ones
by CoyKit
Summary: They found her in the woods outside of Atlanta two months ago. Yet, after all this time she still hasn't spoken a word. Just because she's quiet doesn't mean she doesn't have anything to contribute, and Daryl can see that. After all, a smile can do wonders.
1. Chapter 1

Silence permeated the car as Daryl, Rick, and Glenn tried hard to avoid looking at Dani. Glances were thrown around and yet no words were spoken.

Daryl, in the passenger seat, sat with his shoulders slumped and his head bowed. His hands were clasped hard and he used his thumb to scrape the rough skin of his fingers; a nervous tick. With heavily lidded eyes he looked to his left and saw Rick with furrowed eyebrows exchanging glances between the road, Daryl and Dani in the backseat.

"Well," croaked Rick, his Georgia accent thick with emotion. "All else aside that was a pretty good run."

Dani was silent. Her eyes slightly narrowed looking out the window at the seemingly endless fields that separated the small town from the Greene farm. 'Good my ass. I shouldn't have come. How do I always managed to fuck shit up.' She thought, anger bubbling up inside of her. 'They could have died. I was nothing but a liability.'

"Yeah, it was great. Except that end bit." Glenn mumbled angrily. Dani watched as Daryl turned around in the passenger seat to glare at Glenn so hard it made him wiggle in his seat, a mumbled "sorry" escaped him as he looked everywhere to avoid Daryl's eyes.

As he turned back around, Daryl looked her over. Her knees were huddled up close to her body and the backpack that held the items from the run was being cradled tightly under her left arm. 'She damn sure wen'through a lot fer that shit.' He mused.

After the gunfire in the jewelry store, Daryl remembered slowly approaching Dani. Her hands were shaking and her breathing was heavy. Without making a sound, he put his hand on hers, the gun quaking with a soft clatter beneath. Her gaze switched immediately from the body on the ground to Daryl. Her eyes were slightly wild and she looked at him with almost disbelief at what had just happened. His eyes implored her: 'Give me the gun.' accentuated with a nod of his head as he lightly pulled the firearm from her.

"Guys, we got walkers." Glenn poked his head back through the door of the jewelry store after he had slipped out to check for any reaction to the sound of the shots.

His voice broke the revere she had seemed to be in and she began to look around the store again. The familiar adrenaline walkers inspired was bringing her back to life. She made a beeline over to where her rucksack and backpack were.

"C'mon." Daryl mumbled, motioning to the direction the parked the car. He began to take her elbow and lead her outside.

She whipped around to glare daggers at Daryl, yanking her arm from his grasp. His only reaction was to put both hands up in surrender and back up enough to have a look out the door where Glenn was keeping watch. With haste, Dani picked up the backpack and rucksack, hesitating only to swipe something off the floor. With a huff, she reached back into her bag and armed herself with her knife. Daryl took that as a silent 'ready' and bounded out of the door, with Dani close behind.

With a swift kick of the dashboard, Daryl turned around to face the road with Rick. They still had twenty minutes to go before the Greene farm.

Chewing on the side of his thumb and ignoring the mindless chatter Rick was trying to initiate, Daryl felt his thoughts drifting back to the jewelry shop. 'It hadta be her firs'time killin' someone.' with a sardonic huff he mused, 'Least someone who was 'live at tha time.'

He threw another look at her in the rear view mirror. For anyone else, the painstaking silence would have been an indicator of emotional trauma but with Dani, it was just normal. She must have felt his gaze because with a sharp look into the mirror she saw him. He was met with a sallow face, her eyes screaming uncertainty. A little alarmed at being caught staring, Daryl shifted his attention back to his hands flashing back to the mirror every few minutes. Normally, she would have smiled. Normally, her her eyes would have been dancing.

'Those mutha' fuckin' sons of bitches.' Daryl growled as he crossed his arms gruffly.


	2. Chapter 2

The gravel crunched beneath the tires of the white SUV as Rick pulled into the drive to the farm.

"Home sweet home." Rick said through a smile.

For Dani, this was the part she was dreading. 'All I want to do is to go in my tent. The moment Rick, or more likely Glenn, tells everyone what happened those sympathetic eyes and incessant amounts of coddling will begin.' Steeling herself, she pulled the latch for the car door and stepped out.

Maggie was the first to reach the SUV and practically pull Glenn out of the car into a vice hug. Trying to avoid being noticed, Dani tiptoed out of the car and meekly closed the door.

'I know they're all going to talk about it. I just don't want to be here when they do.'

The house was close and there were some things from the run she could drop off for Hershel. She could bring the food in the rucksack back out for the campers after. By now, Lori and Carl had made it up to the car, and as Lori was checking to make sure Rick had no bullet holes, Carl sauntered over to her.

"Hey." He said with a smile. Dani couldn't help but flash him one in return.

She lifted up her hand and plopped it on his hat, giving it a customary ruffle in order to fluff up the hair underneath. With a chuckle, he pulled his hat off and fixed his hair as Dani walked past and headed to the house.

As Maggie pulled Glenn to the circle where everyone had settled eating their canned lunches, Rick turned to look over Lori's head at Dani as she trudged her way up the small hill to the farmhouse.

"Did she do well?" Lori asked as she led Carl and Rick in the direction Daryl had taken, following Maggie.

"Yeah," he sighed. "She's our best scavenger. We'll," his voice broke. "We'll have food for a week or so." His smile was weak, but earnest as he looked down to Lori. A knot in his throat reminded him of the price they all almost paid for it all.

As she stepped up on the old creaky steps of the porch, Dani reached out her hand to knock on the wood of the screen door.

They might live on the farm, but she understood that this was still Hershel's home. She couldn't just barge in even if the main door was wide open, as it always was.

"Come on in." Came Hershel's voice.

Opening the screen, its spring creaking loudly as she did so, Dani stepped in. Immediately she saw a cringe worthy sight. T-Dog was sitting a chair with his left arm outstretched, the one he had cut on the highway. The bandage had been pealed off and Hershel was cleaning it up. It had been healing nicely, but the sight was still a little discomforting.

"I thought I heard you lot come back." Hershel said with a light smile as he lightly dabbed the wound with rubbing alcohol, their only remaining antiseptic. A hiss slithered through T-Dogs teeth as the cotton hit the sensitive skin.

Not wanting to keep watching the scene, Dani knelt down and yanked open her backpack. One by one she laid out the items she picked up from the pharmacy: a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, three ace bandages, five bottles of ibuprofen, four bottles of generic fever reducers, and a couple of banged up packages of bar soap. Hershel's hands had slowly come to a stop as he began to watch her pull more items out of the bag; a roll of gauze, box of laxatives, flu gels, and a giant box of band-aids.

T-Dog stared with an open mouth at the array of supplies began to litter the floor. With a chuckle, Hershel's eyes were glittering. "You damn near carried home the entire pharmacy, child."

She allowed herself to smile for the first time that afternoon. They had taken up so many of his supplies, with Carl's surgery and T-Dog's arm, Dani was just grateful she had this opportunity to contribute.

There was one more thing in her bag but first, she took out the pad and eon she had to write with and scribbled down a note for Hershel.

_I didn't know what many of these did, and there wasn't much time, so I just grabbed a handful._

She handed it to him to read and plummeted her hands back down the pack to bring out the dozen or so bags of prescriptions she snagged from behind the counter and on the floor at the pharmacy. She was hoping there would be some pain killers and maybe some antibiotics in the bunch at least.

"I... I don't know how to thank you." He croaked as he picked up a few of the prescriptions and rolled them over in his aged hands.

"Yeahhhh, girl, doin' it right!" T-Dog raised his right hand for her and Dani didn't hesitate to give him a high five. T always knew how to make her smile. He was so goofy, even when he was sitting here in semi-torture getting his arm poked and prodded.

She took back her notepad and wrote: _I hope you can use some of them._

"Don't worry, you've done real good." Said the old man, putting a heavy hand on her shoulder as he carried a portion of the supplies upstairs.

Outside by the tents, Daryl leaned against the RV smoking a cigarette from the pack he found in town. Shane climbed down from atop the RV and took an identical posture next to Daryl, "Can I bum one?"

Without sparing Shane a look, he handed off a cig.

Glenn had been giving out some of the items people had requested he look for while in town. With his back turned towards the rest of the group he leaned in to whisper to Lori, "I got it for you. Just let me know when you want it." Her eyes got wide and she looked around, afraid that someone could be watching them. They weren't, of course, but this whole situation had put her on edge.

"You guys did well this time, huh?" Andrea spoke from on top of the RV, crouched, looking over the side.

Rick caught Daryl's eyes. A slow shake of his head told him all he needed to know about his opinion on sharing the news of what happened to Dani. He shifted his look to Glenn and was only greeted with the stare of a deer in headlights. Knowing the truth would be best coming out sooner rather than later, Rick heaved a sigh, bringing his hand up to rest on the bridge of his nose. "Our spoils mighta been good, but we almost paid a heavy price for 'em today." The somber tone he spoke with garnered everyone's attention.

With a loud metallic thump, Daryl smashed his fist into the RV; "Damn it, Rick!" He shouted. Dale balked at the small dent in his pride and joy, "Watch it, son!"

Daryl stomped over to Rick, making sure to shoulder check him as a part of his obvious disapproval. The commotion had brought Carol over from the laundry line, "What's going on over here?" The concern evident in the quiet voice she used as she narrowly missed colliding with Daryl.

The group was glancing back and fourth from Rick to Glenn as if watching a tennis match, waiting for an answer, both men staring mainly at their boots.

"Glenn?" Maggie whispered as she ran her hand down his back, what normally would have been a comforting gesture. The shaking of his head was enough to cause Maggie and the rest of the group to look at Rick with alarm.

With a hesitating glance back at the farm house, Rick began, "We had been at it for a couple of hours, Glenn and Dani had quite a stash goin' on and we had only come across maybe half a dozen walkers," He put a finger through a belt loop on his jeans and continued. "She, uh, she was doin' well for her firs' run and all. We were about to head back when she dragged us inta a jewelry store she'd jus' cleared out."

Shane scoffed.

"Glenn and I were lookin' around, Daryl mentioned there might be a gun under the counter, ya know, that a store owner would have used back... before."

"Rick... What happened?" Lori asked.

They hung on his every word: Lori, Dale, Carol, Shane, Maggie, Glenn, Carl, Andrea, and the lot of them.

"We let our guard down," Rick lamented. "Two minutes was all it took and all of a sudden... we looked up and two survivors had come in store; one man had Dani's arms behind her back and a gun to her head, the other had his gun trained at Daryl." He said nodding his head in the direction Daryl stomped off in.

Shane huffed. "That's fuckin' perfect." He smiled in a way that would have made a jackal proud, his head bobbing with subdued laughter. "Y'all almost die for some bitch we barely know, just so she could get her hand on some fuckin' rocks that don't mean shit anymore!" His voice shook as he waved his hand in the air.

Without warning, Glenn leapt across the space between him and Shane. His fist connecting intently with Shane's jaw, a loud twang was heard from knocking his head back hard against the RV.

Dale and Andrea, as quickly as they could, ripped them apart, Glenn kicking his thin legs in the air as Dale easily lifted him from the ground, Andrea having a harder time clinging to Shane, who was trying his best to twist his shoulders from her grip. He obviously wasn't backing down from the punch, his lip already swelling around the broken skin from Glenn's surprise attack. Dale pulled roughly on Glenn's arms, dragging him back a few feet from where Shane had been.

"You don't know anything!" Glenn cried out, throwing his pointer finger in Shane's direction.

"What's goin' on, Rick?" Maggie asked in a shaken voice.

"We all had our weapons drawn, but if any one of us fired, the guy holding Dani could have blown her head off. We were stuck."


	3. Chapter 3

"What're ya gunna do, partner?" The gunman said to Rick from behind Dani. "I got this little gem in my arms here and you wont take a chance to fire at her, I can see it." He smiled, yellow broken teeth bared between cracked lips.

Daryl shifted, his crossbow aimed precisely at the second gunman, but his eyes were flashing back and forth from the man who held Dani and Rick, begging for a sign, any signal to shoot. Glenn had his gun trained on the second also, leaving the man taking her hostage for Rick.

"Jus' let'er go. We don't want any trouble, friend. We're jus' sweepin' through. We'll give you whatever you want." Rick was trying hard to smile, to keep a smooth voice, to mediate. They have to make it out of here alive. All of them.

"Your car. We want your car." He said, eyes shifting from Daryl to Glenn then to Rick.

Rick lifted both his hands in the air; the second bandit readjusted his gun at him, a warning not to try anything shady. Slowly, Rick reached in his pocket for the keys to the SUV. "Take it, s'all yours." He said as he flung the keys in their direction.

Dani had been trying ardently to pull her arms out of the death grip the stranger had had on her. Yet, the more she struggled the tighter his vice-like hands seemed to be.

"She's a little feisty, huh?" He said to his partner as Dani stumbled forward from the aggressive attempt to yank her hands free. "She don't make much noise though." He leaned his beak-like nose into her hair and inhaled deeply. 'You fucker.' She thought, disgusted as she leaned as far away as she could. "We could have some fun with her, eh Freddie?" He laughed suggestively, his mate chuckling and nodding in agreement. "Yeahhhh, boy!"

The threat made Dani freeze. A sick slimy cold feeling slithered up her spine. Her eyes wide with realization: _'They're not gunna let me go.'_

Daryl raised his bow up higher and took aim at the man behind her. Glenn readjusted his weapon, ready to fire. The atmosphere thickened a thousand fold.

"We gave you the car, now just let her go and we'll let you leave, you have my word." Rick promised, trying desperately to reason with them.

"Ya know, I don't think I trust your word, partner. I think... I think I'll take this little dime with me... to ensure our safety."

Dani had stopped struggling. Her limbs no longer responding. Her body was numb. Her mind was blank. _'They're not gunna let me go.'_

The man took moved his pistol slightly and almost lovingly slid it down her cheek, a caress of sorts. Not feeling any resistance, he continued to drag the gun down over her neck, her collarbone and even between her breasts.

Her senses had shut down and instead of tensing at the touch of the cold metal against her skin, her muscles went soft. _'They're not gunna let me go.'_

"I think she likes it, Hunt." He sneered. The last thing she remembered was the smell of whiskey that wafted around her, before she blacked out.

Her instincts took over.

No longer flexed with tension, the arms he had been holding behind her back had wiggle room to move. In a flash, she untwisted them, swinging his left arm behind him and using primal reflexes, took the pistol from his right hand into hers.

BANG.

She shot the man next to Daryl. His head connected with the wall and the bullet hole in his skull left a thick trail of blood as his body slid down the wood paneling. Before anyone could blink, a second - - BANG - - as she shot the bastard, bent over in front of her, his left arm twisted behind him at a ninety degree angle.

The thud of the dead body echoed around the room. Glenn only allow a second or do to pass before he bounded over to her, taking her face in his hands. "You alright? Are you okay?" He asked as he shook her face gently.

She didn't answer. She hadn't moved since she fired the gun. '_They weren't gunna let me go.'_

"Glenn! Go check fer walkers." Rick said, making a move to pick up Glenn's discarded backpack. With a desperate look back at Dani, he simply nodded and went out the door.

_'They weren't gunna let me go.' _Deep breaths wracked her whole body - her head leaning with each exhale like an exhausted animal.

Daryl spoke softly, his head cocked, evaluating her, "Dani." Her eyes were still glued to the bodies on the floor and her hand was still white-knuckling the gun. "Dani-girl, it's over." He said as he took a step closer. He could hear her breathing getting heavier, dangerously close to hyperventilation. "Hey," He whispered, putting his hands on either side of her face. "It's over."


End file.
